Monday, July 31, 2017

Falling Kings

August, a hot month in these parts, and getting hotter. Two eclipses.
Mercury retrograde. Astrologers
going nuts predicting the fall of DT. Will be or won’t he? Will his Jupiter return protect him, or will Pluto’s
square to his Jupiter topple him?

I’ve already been predicting his downfall because of the stormy aspects
at the new moon of July 23. It looks like
the Tower Card in the tarot, like a time when the mighty fall. But perhaps that loud crash was the
Republican dream of scuttling Obamacare.
And there have been a lot of big shifts since last week's new moon. DT fired his only link to the mainstream political
world, Reince Priebus. And he hired Anthony
Scaramucci, who seemed like a gangster straight out of central casting, and who
was almost immediately fired again (while I was in the middle of writing this
column).

But will DT himself fall? I’m
not as sure it will happen this month, mainly because Jupiter is handing out
some helpful aspects to him throughout August, including the trine to his sun. These are in the face of rough aspects from Saturn
and Pluto. But the Jupiter aspects do
constitute a raincoat in the midst of a shitstorm. They may give him just enough cover to survive.

Saturn’s aspects – opposing his sun and conjuncting his moon - look like they could affect his health. Neurological and digestive problems seem
likely, as well as difficulties with his extremities. But if he has some kind of health crisis and
comes through it, that could actually give him some sympathy points, at least
briefly, and it could delay the inevitable toppling.

Putin is also having a tough time astrologically these days, and there
are aspects that emphasize the link between him and DT. They are both caught in a web of change, and it
may develop slowly, but the ending will be abrupt.

Putin’s influence over DT is not all that benign. So far, DT has been well-paid for his role in
Russian money laundering, but I’m thinking that ultimately all this might cost
him more than he’s gained – not just in money, but in prestige, power, and
reputation. Putin’s Saturn (the planet
of limitation) is exactly conjunct DT’s Jupiter (the planet of expansion).

Looking at their charts together, plus current transiting planets, we
see a T-square, a dynamic, stressful configuration, in which two opposing
planets are squared by a third. Pluto in
Capricorn opposes Putin’s Uranus, and the squaring planets are Putin’s Saturn (restriction)
on top of DT’s Jupiter (advancement).
The squaring planets are the catalyst planets; they are the ones that act out the
tension.

So Putin acts it out by adding restrictions, such as the current demand
that the US embassy lay off most of its personnel. And DT acts it out by being as outrageous and
over-the-top as he can possibly be, assuming that what people mainly want is
entertainment. It does look like the
Vlad and Don Show will come crashing down sometime in the next six months, and
that clutching each other might hasten the fall for both.

The eclipses this month also give a message of dramatic change, and
this also covers the next six months, until the next eclipses in January and February
of 2018. This lunar eclipse (on August 21)
is right on DT’s ascendant, and the one on February 15 will be exactly opposite
his ascendant. So this looks to me as
though DT has just been caught up in the hand of fate, and will be carried
along by forces well beyond his control for the next six months.

One possibility is that DT’s dementia will become impossible to ignore
around that time, since that’s when Saturn in Capricorn will be forming a
T-square with his Mercury and Neptune. I
wonder who will be brave enough to say it first? After it comes out, everybody will be saying
that they’ve known it for years, just like they did with Reagan. And it’s true, some people have been writing
about this for months, analyzing word usage, finding unmistakable clues.

I wonder if people will miss the carnival clown that was DT. I’m sure late night comedians will.

Even if DT doesn’t fall all the way this month, August is still pretty
stormy. At the full moon of August 7, Mars
is still very much in the picture, so people are pushier and more
competitive. They want to win, whatever
the fight is.

With this eclipse in Aquarius/Leo, there will be some pitched battles
between the altruists and the hedonists. Is it that the altruists really care about the
state of the world, while the hedonists are completely self-centered? Or are
the altruists sanctimonious pricks who only want to lecture about how other people
aren’t living right, while the hedonists have a healthy and natural
self-regard?

This also looks like the political divide in the US, with the
tofu-eaters on one side (Aquarius) and the cooked-to-death-steak-with-ketchup
contingent on the other (Leo). Is there
no middle ground? Isn’t there a possibility of finding something healthy and
delicious? But it’s a tricky opposition,
especially because these are both fixed signs, and because there is so much ego
involved.

One of the hardest things is to figure out how to intersect with your
community (Aquarius) while still respecting the independence of others (Leo). When do you correct? When do you fight? When do you take a stand? With the south node currently in Aquarius, our
weakness often lies in the belief that we know better than others. But it doesn't work to make change from this perspective; it's like
trying to fight fire (Leo) with an air hose (Aquarius).

The lunar eclipse is followed quickly by Mercury going retrograde on
August 12. When it retrogrades, Mercury will be opposing
Neptune, and this makes things even more confusing for the first week. It may be hard to figure out what people are
saying, and what they really mean. And watch out for accidents involving the
intersection between earth and water. Watch
for floods, hurricanes, and bathtub slippage!

And then there’s the final eclipse, the one everyone’s gathering for, the
solar eclipse of August 21. This one is exciting, with the sun and moon
closely trine Uranus, and it ushers in a lunar cycle with a lot of positive
changes. Inventors, creative people, and
political activists could all get a boost.
It happens in fire signs, so it’s driven by boldness, passion, and the
desire to shine. Mars is still in the
picture, but not as close as during the July new moon, and so there aren’t as
many revolutionary factors. But an
eclipse always shows change, and an eclipse in Leo can show crowns falling off
the heads of kings.

Everybody gets their turn in the limelight. Everyone gets to strut and fret his hour on the
stage. But I’m thinking it’s almost time for a long hook to come out of the
wings and put an end to the latest act.